My family and I moved to Pleasantville U.S.A about 4 years ago. And it is pleasantville in every sense of the word. Neighbors look out for one another. Multi-family bbq's take place at least weekly. Children wander fearlessly through each other's yards. Joggers & bikers always wave or stop to say hello, whether you know them or not. Colonial-era carolers visit our home to sing inspirational hymns a capella. OK, that's going a bit too far, but you understand.
We had our dearest friends in town for a visit recently. They're from the East side of the state and although they live in a posh neighborhood, it still seems light years away from me....what with the city lights, locked doors and Starbucks on every corner. They think we live in the middle of nowhere---Butt F*ck Nowhere to be exact. I'll admit, it's a bit small town and yes, I'll even go as far to admit that a few weeks after we moved here, I was scanning radio stations and darned if I didn't hear "Baby Got Bible" on a Christian radio channel. As in, "Oh My Gosh, Becky, look at her bible...it's so big, she must think she's one of those preachers daughter's or something....". I almost put our house up for sale that night. Kids, pack it up, we're outta here. But, after a while this darn place grew on me and we've grown accustom to our small town ways.
That being said, we excitedly welcomed our out-of-town guest with open arms and looked greatly forward to an evening of fun. Fun, indeed. Once we convinced our dear friends that we do, in fact, house electricity and running water, the beers began to flow and laughter ensued. At approximately midnight a threesome of hoodlums came barreling through our backyard, followed by a man yelling, "did you see those kids, they broke into my garage"?!?! Well, that's all the ammunition our husbands needed to play cops and robbers. Off they go, leaving my girlfriend and I to sit roll our eyes at the situation. After about 20 minutes they still hadn't come back yet, so we went around front to investigate. Her husband was huffing and puffing up the driveway and demanded that I call the police. "POLICE"?, I say to him..."Really---is that necessary"? He gets all mad and so forth and tells me that my husband has the hoodlums 'in custody' and I need to call the police immediately. So, I'm in no condition to be speaking to the authorities, but I do as I'm told. Here's how the conversation went down:
Dispatcher: 911, where is your emergency
Me: Well. See, there is no emergency per se, but some kids just ran through our yard and another neighbor claims they broke into his garage.
Dispatcher: Where is that other neighbor now?
Me: Not a clue, musta gone home.
Dispatcher: Where are the boys?
Me: Oh, my husband has them contained.
Dispatcher: CONTAINED???? WHERE??
Me: Over there (I point over there)
Dispatcher: Ma'am, I can't see you through the phone
Me: oh, right...ummm 2 doors down from me....in the yard.
Dispatcher: Ma'am describe your husband please.
Me: OK, he's 6'1", about 230, maybe less due to his recent weight loss, he's Hispanic and is wearing a grubby red shirt.
Me: Oh, wait, I know where you're going with this. He's not holding the kids in a violent way, he's just making sure they don't run. Scaring them, if you will.
Dispatcher: Uh huh.
Me: Seriously.
I'm imagining that my choice of words will most likely land my husband in jail for the night. I imagine our conjugal visits.
Finally she tells me she'll send a car. At this point my girlfriend is doubled over in my front yard, dying laughing. We're crying, when all of a sudden 2 Sheriff cars come whizzing up my driveway. I put down my brewski and walk up the car. One cop stops me and tells me to wait right there. (Like I'm the perp or something) FYI, perp is code-ski for perpetrator. We explain the story again when my friend's husband comes huffing and puffing up the road again and he takes over and explains the situation to the police. At this point, I grow bored with the whole situation and walk back to the deck to enjoy more beers. The guys finally join us and things die down. As it turns out, the 'two youts' weren't stealing out of garages, but ding dong ditching. I called the police on 3 boys who were ding dong ditching. Do you have any idea what that does to my karma? I have 2 boys of my own. Not to mention the fact that I did much, much, much worse than that at their age.
As we all sat there and pondered our own troubled pasts our guest says to us, "nice friggin' place you guys live in....what is this the ghetto"????
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